


The Mad Science Corps

by NebulousMistress



Series: Let Slip the Hounds of the First Order [12]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Contains Science, Crisis of Morality, Elements of an Eldritch Force, Gen, Kuat Engineering, Mad Science Corps, Monster Armitage Hux, Planet Ilum (Star Wars), Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, did the research
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:09:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27943547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: General Brendol Hux is dead.Now nothing will stand between his son and true mad science. What depths of madness, what heights of engineering, what lengths of absurdity can be reached now that nobody stands in the way?
Series: Let Slip the Hounds of the First Order [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698706
Comments: 23
Kudos: 31





	1. The Capital Ship

General Enric Pryde stood on the bridge of the  _ Locutor _ overlooking the Asar system.

Once this had been a virginal system. Beautiful and white and pure, Ilum cloaked in a veil of snow and ice like a bride. Asar burned pale and bright in the distance, the white star still young enough to burn on the main sequence. Pale worlds of unchanging ice lurked beyond Ilum’s orbit, pale worlds burned within. Untouched by mortal hands. Even the Jedi had been respectful.

Then the Empire came and stripmined Ilum. But even that hadn’t destroyed the world’s pale beauty. Not like this.

The Empire’s mining trench lay burned and dark, the trench lined and buttressed with a metal skin. Up close one might see the tunnels burrowing into the sides of those trenches, Ilum’s crust hollowed out like rodent warrens full of scientists and Stormtroopers and those not sane enough to insist upon staying stationed aboard ships.   


Ilum slowly spun underneath as the  _ Locutor _ orbited the planet. General Pryde sneered in disgust as the great impact crater of Ilum rotated into view. Tugs and construction ships and an Interdictor floated in planetary-synchronous orbit, and how an Interdictor got commandeered for this ridiculous project Pryde would never understand. The crater below glowed faintly red even from here, the sides of the crater walls held back by forcefields and metal structure and Force knew what else.

Pryde hated the thing. The entire planet had earned his ire. The Supreme Leader had his plans, of course, but that didn’t mean the First Order military needed to be involved. That didn’t mean he needed to be here.

If only Brendol had lived.

Pryde knew it was irrational but he blamed Brendol for this. For all of it. It was Brendol’s bastard brat that had them all trapped in this system, using Ilum as a base of operations. Before the Supreme Leader all but gifted the planet to Armitage, Ilum had been nothing more than a footnote, another of a dozen planetary systems the First Order managed to exert some control over. 

Now it seemed the First Order was pulling back in on itself, consolidating power in this system even as negotiations with the Ascendency continued. Dry docks orbited at Asar-Ilum lagrange points, supplied by Kuat in order to cover old debts owed to the Empire for undelivered merchandise. The new  _ Resurgent _ -class ship was an unsightly bastard of concepts, dark and silent and giant and powerful and stealthy and fast. A Star Destroyer was meant to make a statement when it entered a system and the  _ Resurgent _ didn’t. At least, it didn’t make a statement that Pryde liked.

Pryde blamed Brendol for this. But the man wasn’t around anymore to suffer his ire. There wasn’t even a body left to desecrate. Only a tank of tainted bacta that had to be encased in glass and then dropped into the main crater of Ilum.

It was for everyone else’s safety. It was to keep whatever killed Brendol from spreading to anyone else. It was the ultimate insult for Brendol to become a molten footnote in Armitage’s own pet project.

Whatever the blighted thing became.

Ilum’s main crater glowed red below. Not just a crater anymore, now it looked more like a bore hole extending far enough into the planet that the base glowed red from the heat beneath. There were plans to keep extending that bore hole as far as possible, beyond the limits of sanity and engineering, and Pryde had no idea why.

If he had his way he’d just collapse the whole thing and be done with it. It would collapse in on itself soon enough anyway. Better to leave this nonsense behind and get back to keeping Imperial aspirations alive.

Until then General Pryde would follow the commands of his Supreme Leader.

*****

Dr. Venka Myri took a deep breath of recycled air. The sound echoed in her helm. The skintight environmental suit kept her compressed and insulated from the worst of space around her. Her internal respirator offered an added level of protection in case of another helmet failure. The Ring harness strapped to her back maintained her oxygen as surely as it anchored her Ring legs. She skittered on those legs along the beam of the dry dock below her as she took in the shipyards all around her.

These shipyards over Ilum were a delicate investment for Kuat Engineering. On the one hand, the Galactic Concordance Treaty meant dealing with any Imperial Remnant was a crime. If the New Republic found out it could mean sanction on the Senate floor, the loss of Kuat’s licenses, Dr. Myri being disappeared out of an airlock in the next round of layoffs.

On the other hand…

There were so many other reasons why she was here today. The New Republic demilitarization meant a sharp drop in contracts and profits. It meant cutbacks as Kuat was unable to justify keeping so many workers to fulfil orders that never came. It meant nobody to pay the cost of repairs for Kuat’s orbital ring after the New Republic ever so diplomatically declared the damage incurred in the battle a ‘business expense’.

Ilum was not an ideal location for a shipyard. The world was not associated with any major hyperspace routes. But…

Dr. Myri took in the scene from her vantage point. Ilum shone below her, vast and white and itself already a marvel of engineering. The bore hole descending a thousand kilometers deep into the mantle intrigued her but that wasn’t why she was here.

No, she looked beyond Ilum’s great orb to the shipyards around her.

Droids and engineers in environmental suits worked in vacuum on the skeletons of ships. These giant Star Destroyers were a marvel of design that she wished she’d invented. Instead the design of these ships was a collaborative effort among younger officers in the First Order, a design she wouldn’t insult by taking credit for.

She released the mag lock on her Ring legs and jumped out to another beam. Her Ring legs grabbed the beam and re-engaged, allowing her to climb the beam to another vantage point.

Ilum was unique in that it didn’t import its materials. Rather the First Order had studied history. Kuat’s own inner planet Sooat had long since been dismantled, it’s mass building the orbital ring and the first colony ships over 25 thousand years ago. Asar’s inner world suffered the same fate.

Ilum was not an ideal location.  


Eight dry docks, each with a  _ Resurgent- _ class under construction, orbited Asar-Ilum lagrange 1. Dr. Myri took notes on the datapad affixed to her wrist, checking them against the HUD in her cybereyes. The processing platforms used to process ore into usable materials were easy enough to move, Ilum already had several in the comet belt and further in near the inner planet’s shattered corpse.

Ilum was not an ideal location. But then neither was Kuat once. All it took was a little engineering…

Dr. Myri had an idea. She tapped the radio on her helm, activating it. “Kuat Central, this is Dr. Venka Myri of the inspection team, I need to speak to Ilum’s engineering team.”

An answer came to her. “Over the comm?”

“Negative,” she said. She looked down at her notes, sketching out the idea before it left her. Interstellar space was littered with material, especially the chaotic Unknown Regions. Nobody else was taking advantage of the detritus outside of civilized space. Why shouldn’t a shipyard be mobile? “I need to speak to someone in person. It’s important.”

Why shouldn’t aerospace take advantage of the technological advances that currently held a thousand kilometer borehole open?

A Kuat corporate shuttle flew near, buzzing the dry dock. Dr. Myri approached before jumping off, retracting her Ring legs back into the Ring harness as she tossed out a magnetic line. The line stuck onto the side of the shuttle and she pulled herself toward the ship. The shuttle began its approach to the planet while she found the side hatch and entered, leaving her Ring harness in its charger in the airlock.

She had a proposal to make.

*****

Major Armitage Hux wasn’t sure about the teal uniform. He hadn’t worn it for long, only a few weeks. The timing of his promotion left him suspicious, like he was being pitied. Or maybe rewarded. Given how the First Order sometimes worked, it could be either one. His promotion was conveniently close to Brendol’s death, leading Armitage to believe the two were linked. 

Whether a reward from someone who suspected or a pity-promotion from someone who couldn’t even imagine, Hux had already begun to use his position. If only officer’s armor came in teal. He felt exposed without it.

Hux pulled himself out of his thoughts and back to the conference room. It showed none of the cracks or damage of Ilum’s previous tests, no evidence of the impacts at all. Viewscreens covered three of the dull white walls, flat and touch-sensitive for easy use. Yet it was the fourth wall with its whiteboard of scrap duraplast that was most utilized, still covered in equations of pressure and density and the drawn arrows of force vectors with a doodle of a stormtrooper being crushed while on fire. A large table sat in the middle of the room, chairs all around it in varying levels of destruction as though scientists had a hard time sitting still. The table already sported a dozen caf stains though there was no visible source. The planet itself warmed the room, leaving Hux panting and oily even as the environmental controls worked at maximum capacity to keep the room cool.

This new conference room was part of a complex deep in Ilum’s crust, carved into the walls of the mining trench. But it meant this room was safe. Or as safe as any room on Ilum could be.

An engineer from Kuat had asked to meet Ilum’s engineers. 

Dr. Kron Stovek was the head of Ilum’s structural engineering. He handled the design of the trenches, how to keep the atmosphere from falling into the mantle, and the construction of the new facilities built here in Ilum’s crust. 

Dr. Tendo Gavin was chief metallurgist. Their alloys held the impact crater open, extending the shaft a thousand kilometers down into the mantle. With delicate effort, and with the Interdictor’s aid, Dr. Gavin assured Hux the impact crater could be extended to the base of the mantle. Maybe even deeper, if they weren’t concerned with the safety of a team down there.

Dr. Scott Bescom was the geologist in charge of understanding Ilum’s kyber core. He wasn’t an engineer, he was a scientist, but he had an idea as to what Ilum could do in the right hands. Possibly. Hux watched the yellow glow of Dr. Bescom’s labcoat as it announced he was simply happy to be included.

This wasn’t the entirety of Ilum’s engineering team, not by a long shot. Each scientist and engineer kept their own team below them, students and young scientists disillusioned by their own worlds. Graduate students scalped from New Republic universities with the promise of new and exciting research. Stormtroopers found unfit for the battlefield but who earned a new purpose in the lab.

An entire Mad Science Corps.

Hux chuffed at the thought. His own father once called them that as an insult. Now the name stuck and they’d made it their own.

A Stormtrooper clad in white opened the door to the conference room, carrying a woman in his arms like a bride. She wore a Kuat Engineering technician’s uniform, a skintight environmental suit without the helmet or the breathing apparatus. She was bald, her dark brown skin oddly gray, her piercing cybereyes processing everything far too quickly to be comfortable.

Hux gestured to a chair and allowed the Stormtrooper to deposit the engineer in it. She melted into the chair like one far too adapted to microgravity. Ilum’s gravity, one and a half times space standard, added extra weight to her movements. Even existing in this much gravity looked exhausting to her.

Hux nodded to the Stormtrooper, an order to leave. The Stormtrooper faltered, his gaze falling to the woman, but a click of Hux’s teeth sent the Stormtrooper away.

“You’re Ilum’s engineering team?” she asked.

“I’m Major Armitage Hux,” Hux said. “I’m head of the project.” He pointed to his scientists in turn. “Dr. Tendo Gavin, chief metallurgist. Dr. Kron Stovek, head structural engineer. Dr. Scott Bescom, chief geologist.”

“Dr. Venka Myri,” she said. “Aerospace architect with Kuat Engineering. They have me out here inspecting your shipyards.”

“And how do they compare to the legendary Kuat Orbital Ring?” Hux wondered.

“There’s no comparing Ilum to Kuat’s infrastructure,” Dr. Myri said. “Kuat has tens of thousands of years over Ilum. But you do well for yourself here. Plenty of raw materials. Keeping the shipyards untethered from the planet is a smart idea. But all you have is Ilum, don’t you.”

Hux leaned against the table, knowing he loomed over Dr. Myri. It was rude but she didn’t seem bothered by the difference in height.

“Once Kuat was just one orbital ring,” she continued. “Kuat solved that problem by creating subsidiaries. Goods and credits can be transferred between companies across hyperspace lanes. I’m not sure Ilum can do that.”

“What do you suggest?”

Dr. Myri pulled the datapad from its sheath on her wrist. She linked the datapad to one of the viewscreen walls and pulled up her initial sketches.

The design was crude but it was just an initial sketch. “Your  _ Resurgents _ are about 3 kilometers long and half that as wide. I imagine their shape makes them particularly agile moving in and out of dry dock. That means they could dock with a moving target if need be.”

Hux looked at the sketches on the wall. It was a strange idea. A vast capital ship with dry docks inside it,  _ Resurgent _ -class vessels built inside the giant ship and birthed like living things. He stood up from the table and stalked to the wall. A dry dock needed so much more than just space to build ships. It needed machining, manufacturing, processing and printing. It needed droid bays, not just storage but production as well. Research, development, living space, food production, the support of an entire supply chain…

“This isn’t a floating dry dock,” Hux mused. “This is a self-contained mobile city.” He added to the sketches, spreading it from the shape of a Super Star Destroyer into something with broader wings. The broad area gave more belly for more berths, more space to make…

To make what?

He wasn’t entirely sure.

“Is this an official proposal?” Hux asked.

Dr. Myri laughed. “Not yet,” she said. “I’m just the designer and this is just an idea. You do have an amazing facility out here, Major Hux. Kuat Engineering will not be thrilled by my report. But if this interests you, if I could bring something interesting back with me…”

Hux considered the design on the wall. Mobile shipyards would get the First Order out of the Ilum system. Better yet, it would take scrutiny off of Ilum. There was no telling when the Ascendency might take offense to Ilum’s development. 

There was no telling when the Supreme Leader would get tired of Ilum’s slow progress. 

“I see what you get,” Hux said. “A ship this size is a personal accomplishment, not to mention the contract’s monetary worth. But what does this gain the First Order?”

“Other than a gigantic dreadnought? The ability to move ship construction wherever you please? The full power of Kuat Engineering’s research and development branches?”

Hux considered the sketch again.

“And what exactly can Kuat’s R&D give us?” Dr. Gavin asked.

Hux allowed Dr. Gavin to take the floor.

Dr. Gavin sauntered over to the sketches on the wall and added more, extending the wings to ridiculous width. This added more space in the belly of the ship, moving power production out into the wings.

Dr. Myri leaned forward. She put her datapad down in midair, looking surprised when it didn’t stay there. She glanced up on instinct then down and scowled at it.

Dr. Gavin glanced back at Hux, who nodded. They kept going, adding engines and even more width while Hux narrated. “The Death Star’s engine design could always be repurposed,” Hux mused. “It used a mix of reactor types, this could too. Smaller fusion reactors in the wings to produce ship’s power, hypermatter reactors for the hyperdrive.” Dr. Gavin kept adding to the structure, fleshing it out with Hux’s proposals and necessitating even more width. Now a little more length. Now more width. Now more engines.

“You’re looking at Death Star sizing,” she realized. “The Death Star only worked because it was spherical. Quadranium isn’t going to hold that thing together.”

“Not alone,” Dr. Gavin agreed. They gestured to another wall that activated to show the current configuration of Ilum’s borehole. Diagrams detailed the planned extension of that borehole to the mantle-core boundary with numbers showing exactly what kind of stresses the borehole would experience at that depth. “Quadranium makes an excellent hull plate material but I think we have alloys here that might make for a better skeleton. We could build this thing, what, fifty? Sixty? Seventy kilometers wide?”

“A hundred,” Hux said. “Size isn’t the limit here, only credits. And will. Does Kuat have the will to undertake something of this size?”

Dr. Myri gazed at the sketch on the wall. The concept, a mobile shipyard, was hers. But this giant flying wing shape with engines and reactors and a half-fleshed out skeleton that turned the concept into a full-fledged idea? Kuat couldn’t do this, not with the Ring in its current state. But these engineers could. Ilum itself was a testament to that.

“Have your negotiators propose an alliance,” Dr. Myri allowed. “You can’t do it alone but neither can we.” She grinned. “Does it interest you?”

Hux gazed at the design that now graced his wall. The First Order had no capital, no seat of power. Ilum was the closest they had and his plans did not involve building a capital. All they had was a decentralized collection of Star Destroyers all following the vague orders issued from the nautilus shell at the center of the  _ Kraken _ . 

They needed more than Snoke’s pleasure barge if the First Order was ever going to get anywhere.

They needed a capital.

“It does,” Hux purred.

*****

The communications chamber on Ilum was so much easier to use than the one on the  _ Locutor _ .

Major Hux was particularly proud of this one. With Dr. Katsuo’s research, Dr. Stephan’s programming, and using Simulation Room 23 as a basis, he’d managed to turn the old Imperial design into something he could see. Something he could interact with.

The room was spherical, a great orb of emitters that shone black against black in the walls. A long walkway extended to the center of the orb where a platform acted as a gigantic transmission plate. No longer did he or anyone have to kneel on a small lit circle in order for the Supreme Leader to answer their comm.

But the most important difference was the hologram itself. The emitters had the power to focus their hologram to any size demanded by the recipient, life sized or the palm of the hand or large enough to fill the entire orb. Best of all, no matter the size the hologram would remain clear, visible, detailed. 

Major Hux connected to the  _ Kraken _ and waited.

When the Supreme Leader’s image filled the orb it didn’t blind Hux. He could see the details of expression, the mistrustful disdain that Snoke had for every interruption. Hux dropped to one knee and bowed his head, showing deference.

“Yes, my hound?” Snoke asked.

“My Lord, one of the Kuati engineers has come to me with a proposal,” Hux began. “The First Order has no capital. We have no homeworld. We have no true base of operations. We can change that, my Lord, indeed we must if the First Order is to realize its goals.”

“We have Ilum,” Snoke said. His hologram visibly grew closer, eyes narrowed as it bared dull teeth. “You have Ilum, to use as you see fit. If a capital is your desire, provide it.”

“Ilum is no capital world,” Hux protested, staring back at the hologram even as it loomed. “Ilum is too far from major hyperspace routes. It’s impossible to approach directly. Only the Emperor’s research and your Attendants granted the First Order access to this illustrious planet. No, Supreme Leader, I do not see fit to transform Ilum into a capital world.”

Hux felt the grip on his neck before he was forcibly dragged out of his kneel and lifted into the air. The transmission platform remained active, perhaps also Snoke’s doing, as Hux dangled from his neck between the misshapen eyes of the hologram. Instinct had him wiggling, thrashing against the Force that held him. That Force only gripped tighter around his neck until he stopped struggling.

“So what does your ‘engineer’ propose?” Snoke purred.

Hux tried to speak past the ball of air lodged in his throat but no sound escaped him.

“Ah, don’t speak,” Snoke said, sounding almost playful. “Show me.”

Hux felt pressure on his ankles, his wrists, his neck, his head, a dozen cold hands touching him in ways he didn’t trust or understand.

“Show me,” Snoke crooned.

The cold spread through him, following his nerves up his limbs and spilling into his chest, plunging him into ice colder than Ilum’s worst night. The hologram grew bright, colors bubbling and swirling and…

The image wasn’t clear, instead fuzzy and dreamlike. A vast ship of indeterminate width cut through space, black on black. Massive engines propelled it through the void. A swarm of tiny  _ Resurgent _ -class Star Destroyers followed and tended the massive ship. 

But then the image… **clarified.**

He saw docking bays where  _ Resurgent _ -class ships docked and accepted repair. Internal dry docks with droids building the skeletons of more such ships. Materials processing and production, Stormtrooper training, fusion plants, weapons labs, Hux watched as the entire ship came to life around him. He watched the ethereal images of people moving through corridors, Stormtroopers in armor, the inner workings of such a gigantic city-ship. Larger than  _ Outbound Flight, _ more secure than the  _ Eclipse, _ as much a capital as any planet.

And at the center of it all, Supreme Leader Snoke himself in a new throne room. The nautilus shell was worn to dull red, its iridescence lost to time. A faceless figure in black knelt to Snoke’s right hand side but to his left…

Hux had seen tuk’ata before but only one ever had green eyes like that.

And then everything stopped.

Hux dropped to the platform below, gasping and coughing as he regained his air. The chill of Snoke’s Force powers shivered through him, making even his bones vibrate. 

“You’ve done well, my beautiful hound,” Snoke crooned. “The First Order will negotiate with Kuat Engineering. In the meantime, we will keep the engineer who proposed this capital ship. Put her to good use.”

Hux pulled himself off of the floor into a kneel, still too cold to stand. He shuddered on his knees, teeth clicking. “Yesss, my Lord,” he hissed.

The hologram faded away, Snoke’s pleased expression disappearing into darkness. Hux wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. This wasn’t the first time the Supreme Leader’s touch left him feeling so chilled. He knew no amount of warmth would dispel that chill, either, he simply had to wait for it to fade.

It gave him time to think.

The image, or was it a vision? A dream? The dream of the capital ship was so vivid, so real. At least it became real as soon as, as what? The only idea he had was too ludicrous to contemplate, that Supreme Leader Snoke had somehow taken control of the vision and then used the Force to amplify it somehow. He could take days analyzing everything he saw, from how the droids working on the  _ Resurgents _ within morphed into engineers in environmental suits then into Kuati with their spidery Ring harnesses. Bioreactors processed waste in ways he didn’t care enough to study. Fusion reactors converted deuterium and helium-3 into energy in ways the Imperials refused to contemplate.

The tuk’ata he’d dreamed on Praxis sitting like an obedient dog at the feet of the Supreme Leader. And who was the figure in black?

Worse, why now did the Supreme Leader call him ‘beautiful’ again?

The whole vision left Hux uneasy. But at least it was done. He’d spoken to the Supreme Leader about this new capital ship and Snoke seemed to want it. It was only a matter of time, then, until Kuat agreed.

The Supreme Leader usually got what he wanted.


	2. The Weapon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sections of this chapter constitute a [Bad Things Happen Bingo](https://nebulousmistress.tumblr.com/post/616692789320810496/here-is-your-card-for-bad-things-happen-bingo) prompt fill for Drowning Their Sorrows.

The environmental controls whined in the heat of Ilum’s lower crust. At 30 kilometers beneath the surface the rocks radiated enough heat to boil water. It meant a robust coolant system was necessary to keep the complex livable. It meant the complex could be kept secure and empty simply by turning that coolant system off as part of a security cycle.

Residual heat remained in the walls and furniture as the coolant system cleared the heat from the most recent security cycle. 

The conference room had a distinct smell, the faint reek of burnt caf mixed with the heavy miasma of hot duraplast. Major Hux wrinkled his nose as the stench tickled at his palate.

Viewscreens came to life on three walls, their high temperature semiconductors able to handle so much more heat than this. The fourth wall held a duraplast whiteboard, the whiteboard warped under constant cycles of heating and cooling. The doodle of the Stormtrooper being crushed while on fire made a sinister sort of sense.

The main table in the middle of the room sat surrounded by chairs that might have been a little more misshapen than before.

There was nothing else here. Nothing else would survive the security cycles.

Dr. Scott Bescom came next with a box full of kyber crystals in his arms, the lot of them shining faint yellows and greens even as his labcoat shimmered orange. Dr. Ashalle Pietre carried several thermoses of caf. Dr. Kron Stovek brought a portable fan, as though it might somehow help the coolant system to cool the room down. Dr. Daniel Otero brought up the rear with an armload of datapads.

Scientists all put their belongings down on the durasteel table and then began the long process of patting carefully at chairs to make sure they were both cool enough and stable enough to sit on.

Major Hux didn’t bother with a chair, instead electing to stand before a viewscreen.

Dr. Pietre handed out thermoses of caf, which explained the caf rings on the table. Dr. Otero handed out datapads. Dr. Stovek kept the fan for himself.

“Dr. Bescom, you have findings to report?” Hux asked.

Dr. Bescom did something the others rarely saw: he removed his lab coat and draped it over the chair as he stood up. The scientist’s uniform underneath was unassuming, the same black uniform of the Technician Corps. It looked strange without the colors of the lab coat, though the coat still kept some color even as he stepped away from it.

“Previously we had postulated the idea that Ilum is alive and has a rudimentary will of its own,” Dr. Bescom began. “That every kyber crystal sourced from Ilum is a piece of that single living consciousness. This led to problems with sample size, in that now we could no longer be sure of any crystal’s point of origin therefore we had to assume a single source.

“Major Hux managed to source us crystals from three separate entities,” he continued. “Dantooine, Mestare, and Jedha. We were able to analyze these three sample types and compare them to the Ilum types we had available to us.” He tapped his datapad and the viewscreen behind him lit up with graphs and charts of findings. Dots with error bars indicated responses to stimuli. Crystal structures were carefully detailed to show differences in each crystal type, from the cubic crystals of Jedha to the trigonal crystals of Dantooine and Ilum to the hexagonal crystals of Mestare. Color charts detailed the crystal’s reactions to known stimuli and how or if they interacted with each other in turn.

“We have found that each kyber source is a unique entity,” Dr. Bescom said. “They each react to stimuli in the same different ways as one might expect from different organisms of the same species.” He reached into his box and pulled two different types of crystal, a smooth nodule of Mestare and a spindle of Dantooine. He held them up, one in each hand, and concentrated.

The crystal from Mestare shimmered pale purple but the crystal from Dantooine glowed yellow green. Strangest still, the labcoat on the chair shone orange as though it picked up on Dr. Bescom’s emotions even at distance.

“Each kyber entity has different views, different ideas,” Dr. Bescom revealed. “We don’t quite yet know what those ideas are. We’re not even sure if we could communicate with it if we knew. Any kyber crystal is part of a larger whole the size and age of a planet, I’m not sure what we’d have to discuss.”

“Or if we’d be able to control the conversation,” Dr. Otero warned. He took the floor as well, taking another wall and its viewscreen. A series of taps to his datapad brought up text detailing his own research. “I’ve studied this phenomenon before,” he allowed. He pulled up transcriptions and translations of older written accounts. “The Jedi knew Ilum was controlling them.”

“Did they do anything about it?” Hux asked.

Dr. Otero brought up accounts of various Jedi Masters and what he knew about them. Several stood out, the early deaths, expulsions from the Jedi Council, the disappearances from the Order as they left over 'philosophical differences'. “They did,” he explained. “They enforced it. It was a secret the Jedi Council kept from their own Order. This was why seeking crystals off of Ilum was discouraged. Those who went elsewhere for their crystals were the most likely to protest the practice.” He sorted these names again, grouping them in ways he then explained. “Jedi who belonged to Dantooine were more likely to seek balance between Light and Dark and were often expelled from the Order or killed under questionable circumstances. Jedi who belonged to Jedha were more likely to leave the Order to pursue lives of contemplation.” He gestured to a different grouping of names. “I don’t have enough on these to make a determination.”

“And Ilum?” Dr. Bescom asked.

“The Jedi who accepted Ilum’s control were the most likely to accept the Order’s teachings,” Dr. Otero said. “Even when those teachings ran counter to their own Jedi Code. Jedi who belonged to Ilum were rewarded for ‘doing what must be done’. I am unsure if Ilum will permit what we may have to do.”

Dr. Pietre winced. “I don’t feel particularly comfortable dealing with this kind of energy knowing our power focus might refuse to cooperate.”

“What can we do about it?” Hux asked.

“The Sith had a method of bending their crystals to their will,” Dr. Otero said, an ominous grin spreading over his face. “Kyber is alive. It feels. It breaks. For lack of a better term, it **bleeds**.”

“How do you bleed a rock?” Dr. Bescom scoffed.

“It bleeds in a metaphysical sense,” Dr. Otero explained. “The Sith would focus their pain, their hate, their strongest passions into their crystal to overwhelm the crystal’s connection to the rest of it’s self. The crystal breaks it’s connection to the whole and becomes overwhelmed by and an extension of the will of the Sith. This is what turns a lightsabre red.”

“How do we bleed a planet?” Dr. Pietre demanded.

“We need to get close to the center,” Dr. Otero said.

“We’re already on schedule to have the borehole opened to the D double-prime region of the mantle-core boundary,” Dr. Stovek snapped. “I’m not sure how long we can keep it open but it can be opened.”

“We need it to stay open if we’re going to use Ilum without blowing up the planet,” Dr. Pietre warned.

“We may crack the planet like an egg if we keep going anyway!”

Hux growled, bringing the scientists back from the verge of shouting. Dr. Stovek sat back and moved the fan so it flew directly in his face. Dr. Pietre fanned herself with a datapad. Dr. Bescom stood with both hands wrapped around a chunky Ilum crystal, its pale green betraying his troubled mind. Only Dr. Otero looked unfazed by the heat, instead he seemed almost calm about the whole thing.

Keeping a conference room this deep in Ilum’s crust made it safe. But it also made tempers run as hot as the planet around them. “Do we know how much power Ilum’s kyber core can handle?” Hux asked.

“I have a rough estimate,” Dr. Pietre allowed. “One billion billion yottajoules. That’s about the energy produced by a neutron star collision kilonova.”

Dr. Stovek looked on in dawning horror. Dr. Bescom drew out figures in mid-air with his fingers as though doing the math might help. Dr. Otero smiled and giggled, a blank giggle like he couldn’t believe it.

Major Hux felt his crest stand on end. That was a lot of energy in a very little space. He wasn’t even sure he comprehended it.

“What could we do with that?” Dr. Bescom asked, his curious tone showing he still didn’t quite grasp the magnitude of the situation. “Destroy a planet?”

“Destroy a sector,” Dr. Stovek predicted.

“Destabilize the Higgs Field,” Hux mused.

Dr. Pietre looked at him and a blinding grin spread across her face. “We could!” she crowed. “And because of gravity’s bleed into Otherspace, it wouldn’t even destroy the universe!”

“Not destroying the universe is a good thing,” Dr. Bescom agreed. Then it finally hit him and he fell out of his chair as every kyber crystal flashed magenta. “Destroy the universe?! I live here!”

“We all live here!” Dr. Stovek protested.

“No, no, it **won’t** destroy the universe,” Dr. Pietre said, trying to calm down her colleagues. “But just to be sure I’ll do the calculations. I’ll calculate out just how much Higgs Field we’ll destabilize. Who knows, you might be right, Kron, it might just destroy a sector.”

“Unless we can generate that kind of power it’s a moot point anyway,” Hux warned, still unnerved by the implications. “Kyber doesn’t produce power, it merely stores and amplifies it. We have no way of making that much power artificially.”

“Not yet,” Dr. Pietre said, a warning note of glee in her eyes. 

“And even if we could, you’d still have to find a way to control a kyber crystal the size of Ilum,” Dr. Bescom said. “Which you can’t because it’s alive and doesn’t understand us. But I don’t think it wants to destroy the universe either.”

Dr. Otero smiled. “Leave that to me,” he said.

“If you’re volunteering to tell the Supreme Leader we need him to bleed a planet, be my guest,” Hux said. “There’s no way that ends well.”

“I’ll tell him,” Dr. Otero agreed. “After I prepare the ritual.”

Dr. Stovek leaned away from the anthropologist, unease written all over his face.

“Once we know what Ilum can be made to do, what then?” Dr. Pietre asked. “When does this become more than just interesting research? What’s our plan for Ilum?”

Hux had an idea. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. The many of the Outer Rim suffered under the bootheels of the New Republic few. ‘The Empire that this galaxy deserves’, that was what Grand Admiral Sloane used to say. The galaxy deserved an Empire that wouldn’t ignore the many, that would redistribute the wealth of the few to feed the starving many. That would uplift the many even if it meant laying the few down low. An Empire for the people.

The Republic failed. The old Empire failed. The New Republic failed. In each case power remained in the Core to appease the few while the many starved.

The power of the galaxy needed to be moved out of the Core. There was no hope for the First Order if it allowed power to stay consolidated in the Core. Whether Coruscant or Hosnian Prime, it didn’t matter. But what would Ilum manage to do? Would it be enough to destroy the entire Core? Could the Core of the galaxy be disrupted such that nothing remained? Without the Core’s physical presence the Rim would remain gravitationally intact for millions of years before the galaxy dissolved. Maybe a few million years was worth it.

“It depends on what you can give me, doesn’t it,” Hux purred.

*****

One billion billion yottajoules.

Dr. Pietre stood before the whiteboard. Viewscreens all around her dripped with numbers, lines of figures and code all cascading down through long phrases of proofs. The equations of kyber power transference worked both ways. Kyber could both absorb and emit the power input into it.

Kyber's power of amplification was an illusion. Like a capacitor, the kyber merely collected the power put into it, storing it until it could be released. This explained so much: the slow ignition of a lightsabre, the AI’s inaccuracy with a turbolaser, even the Death Star’s ridiculously long charge time. Time was the factor, the time it took for kyber to absorb and then release its charge.

Ilum had time. Ilum had as much time as it needed. This meant the only limitation was how long it took to generate one billion billion yottajoules.

One billion billion yottajoules was a mind-numbing amount of energy. It was the amount of starlight produced by a G-type star over its lifetime. It was the mass of a mid sized brown dwarf converted directly to gamma rays. It was enough energy to rip a hole in space and time on the macroscale.

It was a ball of axionic matter 25 kilometers wide self-annihilating in a controlled explosion.

It was ridiculous. It was maddening.

It was _glorious_.

*****

Dr. Stovek watched Ilum rotate below him. The Star Destroyer _Endless_ was in the Ilum system for resupply and repair, to offload supplies liberated from the Hayes System. Soon it would return to its mission, to resource collection and allocation.

He watched Ilum below, the great pale planet with its dark band of construction.

His design.

He did this. He _allowed_ this. Major Hux told him what he wanted and Dr. Stovek gave it willingly, willfully. He **enabled** it, he caused this all!

It was a weapon.

Dr. Stovek left his position at the University of Agamar to get away from the politics of academia. No longer designing the pleasure temples of petty technocrats. No longer redesigning history, destroying the beauty that once was in favor of the vain ideas of the rich and stupid. No longer breaking the wide-eyed promise of hundreds of students, more and more every year, they never stopped looking to him for hope, for help, for someone to tell them it would be all right.

He joined the First Order on the promise of accomplishing something. His work _mattered_ for the first time in his career. Turning Ilum’s mining trench into a living working base, somewhere for the First Order to grow and thrive and expand as it built its fleets overhead? That was worth leaving the New Republic for.

But a weapon?

He didn’t know.

*****

“That’s not how physics works!” Dr. Pietre shouted.

“That’s not how geology works!” Dr. Bescom countered.

Viewscreens flickered in and out around them. One moment numbers carefully cascaded down them like raindrops on a viewport. The next moment the viewscreens disappeared, replaced by a 3 dimensional hologram image of a planet with so many labels and figures and tiny arrows drawn within detailing the flow of molten rock. Images flickered depending on who controlled what, each scientist trying to assert their dominance over the displays through the neural amplifiers on their necks.

Then it stopped. Everything vanished, the 3d holograms, the viewscreens, all of it gone. Simulation Room 23 opened up blank and barren around them. Dr. Andre Stephan glared at them both from the technician’s booth. There was no sound from the closed booth as he held a circuit board in one hand and pointed with the other, shouting impotently.

Both scientists sighed, taking a step back to reassess the situation. They were on the _Locutor_. Major Hux assured them Simulation Room 23 was safe from prying eyes and wandering ears. Dr. Stephan worked in the booth, teaching the AI while designing its descendants. 

Simulation Room 23 was safe not just because of physical security or the AI that controlled it. It was safe because what the scientists discussed made no sense to an outside observer.

“We can’t reach the core,” Dr. Bescom said, starting his point over again. “The outer and middle cores rotate at different speeds. It’s why Ilum has a magnetic field. The D double-prime layer at the base of the mantle is littered with continent-sized blocks floating chaotically on the outer core. There’s too much chaos at the mantle boundary to keep the shaft stable. We can’t punch through it.”

“We can’t not reach the core,” Dr. Pietre countered, emphasizing her own conclusions. “The energy we need will seek the path of least resistance to leave the planet. It will vaporize anything and everything in its path. Best case scenario, it turns everything between the kyber core and the shaft base into gamma rays. Worst case, it doesn’t care about the planet and the entire thing goes up in an explosion the size of a nova. In both scenarios the planet is destroyed with us on it. Whether that destruction takes a moment or a month is a moot point. Either way, Ilum fires once and that’s the only shot we get.”

“Then we get one shot,” he said. “No test firings, no pot shots, no reloads. One shot.”

“Assuming we survive that one shot, what then?” she demanded. “How many years have gone into this project? How many more years? How many billions of credits for just one shot?”

“The Death Star took 22 years to build and it only destroyed one planet.”

Dr. Pietre scoffed. “As though we’re building something so fragile as a Death Star.”

“We kind of are.”

“You take that back!”

Dr. Stephan stepped out of the technician’s booth, his cane in hand. He didn’t use it, instead limping heavily as he gestured with it. “Enough, both of you!” he scolded. “We’re all under a lot of stress right now, I know.” He took a deep breath then let his cane hit the floor as he leaned on it. “When has Major Hux blamed us for the limits of reality?”

Dr. Bescom thought for a moment and then grinned. “He let me shoot Ilum with comets,” he said, his coat flashing orange and red.

“Then why haven’t I gotten anything nice?” Dr. Pietre demanded, pettiness clear in her voice.

“I haven’t had time to program it,” Dr. Stephan said. “The _Resurgents_ all need a lot of hand-holding. I have to awaken the _Maletrix_ first.”

“Oh…” Dr. Pietre’s petty tone faded to something more like pleased surprise.

“So we bring Major Hux the current design,” Dr. Stephan suggested. “We tell him the risks. We find ways to mitigate those risks, even if it means taking on extra risk with the main shaft. If he accepts it, we can go from here. If he doesn’t we find the holes in our design and build from there.”

Dr. Bescom took a deep breath, his coat fading to soft blue as they realized they had a plan.

“Then we need to talk to Kron about this,” Dr. Pietre said. “He’s the one handling most of the design. Where is he?”

*****

Dr. Stovek wasn’t going back. He didn’t agree with weapons. They never accomplished anything. The Republic built its clone army and that led to the Jedi rebelling and getting themselves killed. The Empire sank 22 years into building its Death Star and destroying Alderaan only allowed the Rebellion to take root. The New Republic at least didn’t seem to believe in weapons given its stance on demilitarization. 

Nor did it believe in equality but that was something no government believed in. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here.

He scanned his spoofed diet card, the one that identified as a different random officer at any given moment, and ordered the commissary droid to hand him ‘his’ ration of alcohol. The droid handed him a tray of carefully tailored vegetable matter all designed for whatever Colonel his card declared him to be and a bottle of brandy. He left the tray to the side, tapped the card to reset it, and then scanned it again. And again. And again.

By the time he was done he left six trays on the commissary’s main station and carried eight “rations” of alcohol. Three bottles of wine, two handles of brandy, one glass of gin and tonic, one metric fifth of rum, and a jar of something that smelled like industrial solvent. He tossed back the gin and tonic, leaving the glass where it was as he carried everything else in his arms.

He had some decisions to make.

*****

Major Hux stepped out of the shuttle onto the tarmac of the _Endless_. TT-1098 and TK-1959 followed a step behind him, their shining black armor a sharp contrast to his dull teal uniform. 

He was still reeling from what his scientists had told him. Ilum would fire once. Ilum would survive being fired once, only once. It might survive a second firing, if it could be recharged quickly enough. But they hadn’t even figured out a power source yet. It might take _years_ to charge Ilum’s kyber core for a single shot!

One shot. All he had was one shot.

He needed more than this. At the very least he needed to know just how much power he was working with. Yes, he had a theoretical maximum for Ilum’s power storage but that was nothing more than a best case scenario. Was he working with one tenth that much power? One thousandth? Unless he knew what kind of efficiency he was getting out of the weapon he had no way of knowing what kind of a blast radius he might get out of his one shot. Was Ilum enough to destroy a sector? A system? A planet?

Was it all a waste of time?

He needed a drink. He needed a drink that wasn’t going to make him feel like he’d been sat on by a bantha the next day.

Dr. Pietre and Dr. Bescom were close to blows, again, as they argued over what could and could not be done. Dr. Otero was off doing his own thing, probably involving RX-3081. Dr. Gavin was down in the labs working with tungsten alloys. Dr. Stephan and Dr. Myri were both busy with the next _Resurgent-_ class ship, and he hadn’t known Dr. Myri long enough to know if he could trust her. Besides, she designed ships. Designing Ilum was something entirely different. 

He needed Dr. Stovek back. 

*****

The vast darkness of space spread before him. Transparasteel held back the vacuum, protecting him in a bubble of atmosphere far beyond the confines of any planet.

Dr. Stovek sat alone. He held a gin and tonic glass in one hand, its contents distinctly amber and smoky. Bottles of varying shapes and sizes sat upon the table, the floor, and the viewport’s sill.

This was a small officer’s lounge once. During the height of the Empire a few junior officers might duck into this room to hide contraband in the conservator or avoid their duties for a 15 minute break. Now it was empty. The conservator stood empty and unpowered, long ago cleaned and disconnected. The sink sat alone, with none of the caf packets or powdered teas or used mugs he expected from a living ship. Not even a dirty spoon.

This was not a living ship. Automation handled most of the operation of this ship, Lieutenant Colonel duLandis lording over a vessel full of ghosts and droids. A skeleton crew kept watch in the darkness, interfering just enough to keep the droids in line.

Stovek downed the contents of his glass, alcohol burning his sinuses. He scowled at the taste and glared at the glass as though it were at fault. He grasped for a bottle and unscrewed the top, pouring himself a glass. This one was red, dark and deep. He stared at it, unsure if it was opaque or not.

He swallowed heavily, picking up the glass to look at it.

He shook his head and got up to pour it down the sink. He couldn’t drink that one. It looked like blood.

He grabbed another bottle and poured some of that. He hadn’t rinsed the glass. Clear liquid picked up the swirls of blood, spinning them around in the glass until they faded under the haze of industrial solvent.

Like him, he supposed.

He’d never built a weapon before. He’d never fired a weapon. He’d never hurt anything in his life. But now…

Ilum was his design. He stabilized the mining trenches and repurposed the mining tunnels into a base of operations for the First Order. He pried open the impact crater to create the main shaft of… 

Of a weapon.

He couldn’t take it back. He couldn’t undo what he’d built. The same blood swirled on his own hands.

He knocked back the drink. He coughed in the empty room, gasping for breath under the onslaught of whatever chemical this was.

Maybe it would kill him. Burn him clean of blood.

He didn’t hear the door open.

“Dr. Stovek.”

He knew that voice. It was one that would haunt him for the rest of his life. That voice promised him so many wonderful things, gave him free reign to invent, encouraged his vision, praised his design, and yet that voice lied to him. Every word of praise hid the simple truth that he was building a weapon. The predator Hux offered him the blood of the innocent and he’d plunged his hands in without question.

And now the predator had come for him. He didn’t look up, instead pouring himself another drink. This one was yellow. “Major Hux,” he greeted.

Hux stood in the doorway, his two black-armored hounds behind him. He stepped in, the troopers following as the door fell closed.

The lounge felt too small for this. One hound leaned against the old conservator, the other on the viewport sill. Major Hux pulled up a chair and sat across from Dr. Stovek.

Hux picked one of the bottles and unscrewed the cap, taking a swig directly from the bottle. Dr. Stovek watched as he tossed back his own drink.

“I need you to come back,” Hux said.

Dr. Stovek laughed. It was not a kind laugh, too full of bitterness. “I’m building a weapon,” he said.

“Yes.”

Dr. Stovek paused mid-reach for another bottle. “At least you’re honest about it,” he admitted. He finished his reach, grasping near the jar of what smelled like solvent. He tried again, grabbing it and pouring another glass full.

“This bothers you.”

Dr. Stovek slammed the jar back onto the table. “Of course it bothers me! You have me building a weapon! It’s a new Death Star, no, it’s worse! Worse because it’s mine! I did this! I let you do this to me.” He dropped his head into his hands, trying not to shake. His stomach roiled even as his head pounded.

“Would it have mattered if you’d known?” Hux asked.

Dr. Stovek looked at the major, unable to hide his shock. How could Hux not understand that? He knew Hux was an Arkanan but he’d never considered the man a **monster** before now. Because that’s what this was, a monster. It had nothing to do with the teeth or the eyes or the way he dismantled bats while giggling. This was something else, something fundamental about who he was.

Dr. Stovek tried to get to his feet. He only stumbled once. The door was no option, not with the monster before him who blinked and cocked his head like he was honestly puzzled at the situation. Instead he stood his ground and tried to save himself another way. “Weapons destroy,” he ranted. “That’s what they do. They rip lives in half. They reduce planets to rubble. I spent my entire career rebuilding what the Empire and the Rebellion destroyed in their stupid pointless wars. I lived immersed in that pain, unable to do anything about it as everything I saw was destroyed. Rebuilding doesn’t help, it just makes it worse because everything there was is gone! There are no good wars and there are no just weapons. Not this one, not any!”

Hux took a long drink of the bottle he held. Dr. Stovek swallowed his nausea as he realized it was the red one. It stained Hux’s teeth and lips like blood, dripped down the side of his mouth and trailed down his neck in fat red drops. “So, what, you’d sit back and watch the suffering?” Hux asked. He licked his lips, somehow making it worse. “Perhaps you’d feel better sitting on the steps of the Senate with a sign in your hands. It feels good to do nothing useful, doesn’t it. Peacefully **asssking** for basic rights doesn’t get you anything when the ruling Corrre refuses to believe you’re worth them.”

“So, what, you start a war?! Is that the only answer!”

“Yesss!”

Dr. Stovek had never seen Hux like this before. The veneer of humanity was gone, replaced by something feral and monstrous. It wasn’t the teeth or the spots, nor even the eyes. There was something about this man that spoke of too much death already. What was the rumor, that he’d ordered his first kills at the age of five? Dr. Stovek had dismissed the rumor as hyperbolic nonsense but now he wasn’t so sure. Those eyes were the eyes of one who had killed before and would do it again, over and over. As much as it took to get the job done.

And then the image was gone as Hux growled, shaking his crest back and taking another long drink of blood red wine. He looked almost human again except for that terrible sense of death. Nothing could erase that.

“Everrry Stormtrooper has a tale,” Hux said, his voice still stretched as he growled. “Pain and death. Hopelessness. Desssperation just to survive. The First Order brought them away from that. Gave them a home, food, shelter. An education. A future.” He looked at Dr. Stovek and those eyes looked more alive now than he’d ever seen them before. Even during the comet impacts. “The entire Outerrrrrrrim suffers like that. Trillions of lives wasssted because the Core starrrves the Rim and protectsss their vaunted power by waging their own endless proxy warsss. I am here to **end** their warsss, whether they agree or not.”

Dr. Stovek snorted. “With a weapon.”

“A treaty is nothing more than war delayed,” Hux warned. “It’s an excussse to keep causing the sssame pain but with permission.”

“And a weapon that ends a war?” Dr. Stovek demanded. “Never heard of such a thing. Someone always fights back. Unless you kill everyone at once and not even the Death Star could do that.”

“I don’t need to kill everyone.” Hux paused as though realizing something. He drank thoughtfully, caught between a purr and a growl.

“Just enough of them.”

“Yes.” Hux put the bottle down and stalked close. Dr. Stovek tried to back away but the sink stopped him. “Krrron, I prrromise you. Ilum will only fire once.”

Dr. Stovek scoffed.

“Ilum will fire once and only once,” Hux promised. “The planet will not sssurvive a sssecond shot. Ilum will win the war in a sssingle shot.”

Dr. Stovek tried not to trust him. This was the same enthusiasm that brought him into the Ilum project, that saw him building an access shaft into a planet’s heart just to see if it could be done. He wouldn’t see it done for a weapon, even one that could never be used again.

“There will be no damage,” Hux purred. “No half-destroyed civilization. Nothing to be rebuilt. Nothing left to mourn or be mourned. The galaxy will know peassse. One shot is all it takes.”

Dr. Stovek shook his head.

Hux kept purring but this was different. There was something dangerous about it. “Or we can take the galaxxxy the traditional way,” he warned. “Sssystem by sssystem falling to the First Orrrder fleet. Kuat has already agreed to build the megadreadnaughts. The Core doesn’t protect the Rim worlds, how long until the galaxxxy itself rises up to join us on the prrromise of food? Protection? Purpossse? The New Republic will fall to politicsss or to a sssingle painless shot.”

This was insanity.

“I can’t do it without you,” Hux purred. “Tell me, Krrron, are you going to let all those people die? Or will you help me sssave them?”

Major Hux was insane. He had to be. Only a madman could possibly have the idea to turn a giant planet into a weapon to rival the Death Star. Only a madman could pick a single target and believe its destruction could topple an entire government. The Empire almost made the same mistake when they destroyed Alderaan, the galaxy’s soul. Only Coruscant remained at its heart and seat of--

\--wait.

Coruscant was not the seat of government anymore. Hosnian Prime was not a beloved world, only an important one. Like so many Core worlds it was important solely because it was Core. Forget its location and it became just another world, one of thousands.

“You’re going to destroy Hosnian Prime,” Dr. Stovek realized.

Hux purred his assent. “And you’re going to help me,” he said, drawing long fingers up Dr. Stovek’s uniform. “There’sss no one else who can. It’s the only way to sssave all those people.”

Dr. Stovek gripped the sink behind him. He spun away from Hux’s grasp and vomited.

He vaguely felt Hux pull away from him but he did hear the monster laugh.

Hux already knew his answer, the only one he could give. Damn him. Damn them both to the Void.


	3. The Last Sith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoda says it's okay don't bother him about it.

RX-3081 sat with a crystal in his hands.

His ‘training’, if he could call it that, was confusing and exhausting. Lectures that made no sense, philosophy that had no meaning, none of it applied to him. He wasn’t a Jedi, he wasn’t a Sith, he wasn’t anything as far as he could tell. He was Force-sensitive, he accepted that, but for all his experience it mostly meant he was a liability. Sure he had talents, he had skills, but he didn’t know how to use them and this didn’t seem to help.

Maybe he should have gone with the Ren. Maybe he should have fought Hux when Ren offered, left with the Knights when he had the chance to on Mestare. At least then he’d be among people like himself, others who felt and followed and understood the Force. He’d have more than Dr. Otero and his lectures.

He wasn’t even sure what he was supposed to be doing right now. Ilum was isolated, the complex tunneled into its crust safe from spies and First Order influence. Only Major Hux and the other Hounds had code cylinders to this section of the complex. 

And Dr. Otero.

Master Otero.

A sudden snatch brought RX-3081 back to the present. He was in one of the deep tunnels of the Ilum complex, a broad room with a tall ceiling. Bare stone and tungsten-impregnated durasteel made up the walls, the ceiling, the floor. A crack to one side extended down into the heat of the planet, leaving the entire room humid and sweltering.

It took a moment for RX-3081 to realize what that snatch had been. Only then did he realize the crystal wasn’t in his hand anymore.

Dr. Otero held the crystal up to his eyes. It was a crystal spindle the length and width of three fingers, clear and pure and perfect. “One of Ilum’s,” Dr. Otero mused. 

“Master,” RX-3081 warned.

Dr. Otero fixed RX-3081 with a cold look and tossed the crystal away. It skittered toward the crack in the floor, a crevasse down into the planet below.

RX-3081 watched in horror as the crystal bounced merrily toward the depths. He held a hand out as though he could stop it from here and willed it to come back.

It bounced once, twice, then over the edge to nothingness. And then it… didn’t fall, instead seeming to fly with intent back to RX-3081’s hand. It hit his palm and his fingers closed around it leaving him dumbfounded.

He… he’d never managed to lift _anything_ with the Force before, how had he done that? Why this? Why now?

Dr. Otero glanced back at his reluctant pupil, his errant apprentice. His helm and armor were left behind in the climate-controlled outer room, leaving him in his lower underarmor, an undershirt, and bare feet. His tags laid against his scarred chest, a memento of Praxis. He sat cross-legged on the floor in a meditative pose. Sweat trailed down his temples, matting his hair to his forehead and neck as he looked at his own hand with surprised wonder.

Dr. Otero knew he didn’t look much better. Though the heat and humidity reminded him of his childhood home, he was too old to suffer it easily and needed frequent breaks in the outer room. His scientist’s uniform did little to keep him cool against the oppressive heat of an angry planet, even with his labcoat left in the outer room with his apprentice’s armor.

“Where did you get it?” Dr. Otero asked.

RX-3081 looked down at the crystal. He remembered, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to. “After the first comet strike,” he said. “I joined the surface team.”

“Tell me what happened.”

RX-3081 wasn’t sure how to describe it. Images flashed through his mind, colors flashing in orange and red and blue and green, so much sickly green that strobed and flickered and flooded his mind. “I was walking away from the others,” he said. “The crater rim was over there. The ground shifted with glass spheres and crater debris. And then… I was alone. Really alone. Everything shimmered. So many colors.”

Dr. Otero stepped close, kneeling on the durasteel floor as a delighted grin spread across his face.

“The sand opened up,” RX-3081 continued. “It turned fluid underneath me. I… sank in… and then I reached out and…” He looked down at the crystal in his hands. He remembered finding this crystal in his hand even as TK-1959 broke him out of his hallucination. Or had it been something else? He wasn’t sure anymore.

“Strange,” Dr. Otero mused. “You travel the galaxy, tread a dozen worlds each with their own kyber, and it’s Ilum that calls to you.”

“Master?”

“Kyber is the name of the crystal type,” Dr. Otero explained. “Like ‘quartz’ or ‘corundum’, but alive. Every world with kyber is its own living entity, though on a scale we mortals will never understand. A lightsabre crystal is more than kyber, the same way glass is more than quartz or laser ruby is more than corundum. The same but different. More.”

RX-3081 didn’t understand it at all.

“Do you know how the Jedi used to choose their sabre crystals?” Dr. Otero explained. “Jedi padawans would enter the sacred caves. They would purify themselves through fasting and meditation, strip themselves down to their base selves, then they would enter the lower caverns. They would sit surrounded by kyber and they would wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“The Jedi believed a crystal would choose them. They would open themselves to the Force so they could hear their crystal choosing them. Once the choice was made it was the Jedi’s task to find the crystal that chose them. They could never wield another, only theirs. At least, that was the belief.”

RX-3081 looked down at the crystal in his hand. He’d found it there after TK-1959 jolted him from whatever hallucination? Or was it a vision?

Did it even matter?

“It found me,” RX-3081 wondered. “Then… all I had to do was grasp it. Is that what happened?”

“Is it?”

RX-3081 pondered the crystal in his hand. He hadn’t fasted or purified himself or anything before that mission. He’d simply donned his armor and stepped out into the punishing heat of the impact crater. It was Ilum that flooded him with images, that overwhelmed him with a vision, that handed him a crystal… “It found me.”

“The Jedi would have you believe a weapon is something to be ashamed of,” Dr. Otero said, walking a slow circle around his seated apprentice. “As though striking an opponent is something to avoid. The lightsabre is more civilized than a vibroblade, the same as a blaster is more civilized than a slugthrower. The wound cauterizes. It mains or kills only at the will of the wielder. You decide how to wield your weapon. Tell me, apprentice, if the death of one man saves the lives of a hundred, is his death just?”

“Of course it is.”

“And that is why you are no Jedi,” Dr. Otero said. “A Jedi would refuse to accept the deal. A Jedi would watch a hundred die and lament there was nothing he could do about it. A Jedi would refuse to kill one man to save a hundred. A thousand. The galaxy. A Jedi would allow that suffering and call it ‘just’.”

“Why?” RX-3081 felt horror rising in him at the thought of so much death. No wonder the Jedi were vilified so, if they refused to see to the needs of the many.

“Because the death of one, even a necessary death, was a sin.”

“And so they’d accept the blood of hundreds on their hands?” RX-3081 demanded.

“Thousands,” Dr. Otero agreed. “An entire galaxy. Again and again.”

RX-3081’s gaze fell to his crystal, still so pure and clear and untouched by such nonsense. Or had it caused it? He contemplated tossing his crystal down the chasm himself, if only to save himself from such control. But he didn’t move.

“It was a failing of the Jedi and their code,” Dr. Otero explained. “The Jedi Code is older than their reliance on any one kyber source. I wonder… The Jedi Order only fell to the Sith after they grew to rely on Ilum.”

RX-3081 held the crystal in his hand and closed his eyes. He felt cold even in the heat of the planet. He could _feel_ something beneath, a color, an image, he wasn’t sure what. Nor was he sure where his next words came from. “It had to happen,” he said.

“It did,” Dr. Otero agreed. “The Force was out of balance, as it always has been since the Jedi and the Sith split from each other. Now that there’s only one of each left, the Force can rebuild.”

RX-3081 shook himself and wondered. “Master, you say there’s only one Jedi and one Sith left. Which am I?”

Dr. Otero chuckled as he circled back to RX-3081’s front. “You are neither,” he said. “Nor are the Knights of Ren. Nor the Supreme Leader. There is only one Jedi left, and one Sith.”

RX-3081 gave him a questioning look.

“Luke Skywalker considers himself a Jedi,” Dr. Otero explained. “As for whatever students he’s collected, I expect his hubris will end that for him. Whatever his intentions, he will be the last Jedi.”

“And the Sith?”

Dr. Otero smirked. “Barring whatever Darth Sidious kept from me, there is one Sith left in the galaxy. And I am not Force-sensitive.”

RX-3081 shivered as he regarded his master in new light. “You? You’re the last Sith?”

“The Sith and Jedi Codes are applied philosophies, nothing more. Force-sensitivity does not require you to adhere to a religion as the Jedi and Sith would demand. All it requires is control. Do you allow the Force to control your actions or do you control it instead? Do you believe in a higher power or do you believe in yourself?”

RX-3081 sat back as Dr. Otero retreated to the climate controlled outer chambers. He hadn’t thought about it like that before. So many lectures could have been avoided or at least understood if he’d only known that.

The Jedi and the Sith were nothing more than belief systems used to make sense of the Force. Light and Dark were nothing more than who controlled whom.

He could do this.

He closed his eyes even as he wrapped one hand around the crystal that had chosen him. He opened his mind to the heat around him and felt...

...he wasn’t sure what.

But it was alive.

*****

Dr. Otero scowled at his datapad. Major Hux knew not to bother him on these days when he worked with RX-3081 and yet there it was. The major had called an emergency meeting for all of the department heads working on the Ilum project and he was now five minutes late. This had better be important.

He left a note for his apprentice before grabbing his lab coat and attempting to look like he wasn’t fighting off the first signs of heat exhaustion.

These lower tunnels of the Ilum complex intersected faults and cracks in the lower crust. Heat seeped from beneath in vast columns of superheated gases held back by steam pipes and force fields. Catwalks criss-crossed over fissures that glowed with the heat of magma rivers below. Vents released steam into the complex, making the heat oppressive outside of the few climate controlled chambers.

It was a fitting place for a Sith to train an apprentice.

But he still wasn’t sure. RX-3081 had not yet accepted his need to take control over the Force that roiled within him. Ilum’s crystal in his hand did not fill Dr. Otero with confidence, either. RX-3081 was too fully entrenched in the Light to be safe. He needed to learn control if ever he was going to effectively wield his power in the field.

There was also the matter of Dr. Otero’s own lack of connection to the Force. He was a Force Null, a Sith in belief and education only. He didn’t have the power to attain the rank of Master, he would never take the title ‘Darth’. He was little better than a Cultist, a Sith without power fit only to serve his betters.

Dr. Otero made it to the lift up and sighed as cool air wafted down over his sweat-streaked skin. He slumped against the wall in relief, shivering as his body attempted to adjust.

“Teaching my betters **is** serving them,” he said to the empty lift. Just as he had researched for and collaborated with Darth Sidious. Just as he had taught Darth Vader. He would teach RX-3081.

The lift opened up on the 30 kilometer level. Blank white corridors extended with all the efficiency of a Star Destroyer, taming this world and turning it into a tool. Just as the Force needed to be controlled in order to be made safe, Ilum benefited from that same control. The planet would be tamed. It would be made to do work.

The conference room was flanked by guards, by RX-3081’s own comrades. The two hounds in their black armor allowed the door to open, ushering him inside.

“It is a weapon!” Dr. Stovek shouted.

Major Hux sat at the conference table, taking in the scene before him. He made no move to get up at the display before him.

The viewscreens were all deactivated. The duraplast whiteboard stood warped against one wall with its doodle of an unfortunate Stormtrooper. Dr. Stovek stood in front of it clearly in the middle of a screaming rant even as the other scientists did not seem to know what to do with his shock.

“I have to bleed Ilum, of course it’s a weapon,” Dr. Otero snapped.

Every other department head sat in attendance, the tables shifted around the room in a U-shape to give the whiteboard and Dr. Stovek a large area for his use.

Dr. Pietre sat with her datapad in hand, only somewhat paying attention to the spectacle. Dr. Gavin leaned back in their chair, only sitting back down and taking notice when Dr. Otero spoke up. Dr. Bescom’s labcoat shone with streaks of purple and pale green. Dr. Stephan wondered why he was even here, he was needed by the group from Kuat for inspection of the _Maletrix_. 

“Are we still doing that?” Dr. Bescom asked, his attention turning to Dr. Otero.

“We have to,” Dr. Otero said as he took a seat. He pulled a handkerchief from a pocket of his lab coat and wiped his forehead before shivering. “Do you trust a sentient we can’t communicate with to hold the kind of power we’ll need?”

“I’m not sure I trust it even if it’s bled,” Dr. Pietre admitted. “There’s still a good chance it’ll kill us all.”

“You don’t trust me?” Dr. Otero asked.

“Not really no,” Dr. Bescom said.

Dr. Otero chuckled and folded his handkerchief, stuffing it back into his pocket.

“Are any of you aware of what that power will be used for?” Dr. Stovek demanded. He didn’t wait for the others to answer. “Major Hux plans to destroy the seat of Republic government!”

“Destroy Coruscant?” Dr. Otero asked.

“I thought the New Republic set up on Chandrilla,” Dr. Pietre said.

“They did but then they moved to Hosnian Prime,” Dr. Bescom said. “Ten years ago or so.”

“Where is Hosnian Prime?” Dr. Gavin asked. “I’ve never even heard of it.”

“Wait, when did the Emperor reinstate the Senate?” Dr. Otero asked. “I thought he dissolved it.”

“He did,” Hux said, finally saying something. “The New Republic reinstated the Senate as the legislative branch of their government. They have a weak executive branch headed by a Chancellor and a few underfunded agencies. The courts are the same as they always have been, I believe Grand Justice Pledesin is still on the bench. The last I heard the courts are still stationed on Coruscant and they’re considered the only functioning branch of government in the New Republic.”

“And that’s a reason to destroy a planet?!” Dr. Stovek demanded.

“Probably a system,” Dr. Pietre said.

“How is that better!”

“It’s not Coruscant,” Dr. Otero said. “There were two untouchable planets in the galaxy, Coruscant and Alderaan. The Emperor was furious when Alderaan was destroyed. He foresaw many terrible things as the result of that world’s destruction, most of which have come to pass.”

“Of any world’s destruction!”

“Any other world would not have earned the galaxy’s ire,” Dr. Otero continued. “Coruscant and Alderaan were the heart and soul of humanity in this galaxy, even if the Alderaanians had allowed themselves to evolve. Alderaan’s loss at the hands of the Emperor’s most trusted Grand Moff was what inspired him to begin designing his contingency plans.”

“How do you know this?” Hux asked.

“He told me.” Dr. Otero leaned back in his chair, pleased at the shock on Major Hux’s face. And was that a note of jealousy? Then it shifted to a moment of fear and Hux straightened up, his expression carefully schooled. 

“So now we are tasked with destroying the heart of the New Republic,” Dr. Otero continued, turning his attention to Dr. Stovek in the middle of the room. “The heart of humanity is preserved, just as the Emperor wanted.”

“The weapon will only fire once,” Dr. Pietre said. “Maybe twice. Any more than that and we risk destabilizing the planet.”

Dr. Bescom snorted. “Once is enough,” he said. “Even firing it once will cause the planet to rearrange itself to fit its new interior. It might take a few million years but Ilum will reorganize its insides on geological timescales. I expect firing the weapon once will shrink the planet by a few hundred kilometers radius.”

“Is that an accurate guesstimate?” Dr. Gavin asked. “Or did you pull that out of thin air.”

“Not **thin** air,” Dr. Bescom said defensively.

“So we might be able to fire it twice?!” Dr. Stovek demanded.

“Ashalle and Scott worked out the volume of outer core likely to be lost during each firing,” Dr. Stephan suggested. “Kron, if you’re so worried about it, how about you take their numbers and we calculate how many firings Ilum can handle before the borehole collapses.”

Dr. Stovek looked affronted at the idea.

“The borehole is the most fragile part of this weapon,” Dr. Pietre said. “And the most important. It’s the only thing keeping the planet from blowing itself up when we fire it. If it can’t survive more than one firing without losing integrity or alignment then there’s your answer.”

“You all joined the First Order for a reason,” Dr. Otero said. “I suggest you remember that reason.”

“Yes but--” Dr. Stovek started to make an excuse but was cut off as Dr. Otero raised a hand for silence.

“You had a reason,” Dr. Otero said. “You all had your reasons. Poverty in the Outer Rim. Sanction in universities. The loss of opportunities in your chosen fields. Being branded a traitor and a monster solely for your field of study. Disillusionment with the New Republic. I don’t care what reasons you had but you had them. I suggest you remember them. Hold them close. Then ask yourselves, would you do it again? Knowing what you know now, knowing Ilum’s purpose and fate, would you still join the First Order?”

“I’m an AI programmer wanted in three sectors for banking fraud,” Dr. Stephan said. “When you’re a known AI programmer every unsolved cybercrime is immediately pinned on you. You must have built an AI to do it therefore it’s your crime. It’s the First Order or hiding out in Wild Space.”

“I got my start studying Interdictors for the Rebellion,” Dr. Peitre said. “After the war the New Republic decided the technology was too dangerous to exist and I ended up on the business end of a smear campaign. After all I did for them, I couldn’t get a job anywhere, all my contacts disappeared. I tried to set up on my own but my lab was firebombed. If I hadn’t taken a wrong turn that day I’d have burned along with my research. I took the hint and fled with my life. I haven’t looked back.”

“I did some design work on the Death Star laser,” Dr. Bescom said. “I laid low after Alderaan but a group of vigilantes found me.” He massaged his droid hand, the nerves misfiring as the fingers clenched in the brace. “I fled to the first Star Destroyer I could find. I’m here because I’m safe here.”

“I taught the application of base metals at Macacha University on Nar Shaddaa,” Dr. Gavin said. “Everything was fine until Jabba Desilijic Tiure was assassinated and Arkanis conquered. After that the New Republic decided they could invade. Why stop smugglers and pirates on the Outer Rim when you can just publicly annoy the Hutts. I was arrested at a conference on Coruscant on false charges. I wasn’t going to stick around to be a political prisoner.”

“I came to the Unknown Regions as a child,” Hux admitted. “I’ve spent the last 20 years building the First Order with my own hands. I don’t have a home to go back to. Dr. Otero’s correct, Coruscant and Alderaan were the two worlds of humanity. Any other planet is fair game. Arkanis was glassed by the New Republic, like Alderaan in slow motion, and nobody cares. Nobody will care about Hosnian Prime either.”

All eyes turned to Dr. Stovek in the middle of the room. He looked down at his feet, unable to meet any of their gazes.

“Everything’s built on the bones of what came before,” Dr. Stovek said, not looking up. “I got tired of laying bones on top of bones. Building and rebuilding the same things over and over, the history beneath sealed away to be lost forever. Wars unending. It needs to stop. I came to make it all stop.”

Hux moved, silently unfolding from his chair and stalking behind Dr. Stovek as he spoke. Nobody moved to intervene as Hux crept closer, moving like a predator with eyes wide and black. Only the teal uniform kept him from looking like a monster as he wrapped long fingers around Dr. Stovek’s arms and pressed against the man from behind. The scientist gasped and looked up in terror, a fear that turned to shuddering as Hux nuzzled the man’s neck and began to purr.

“That’sss what we’re herrre forrr,” Hux purred. “Peassse has to be taken. Earned. Not the complasssency of a war-weary populace willing to accept death in compromise. Not the treatiessssigned by rich Core worlds who can stop bankrolling their armies now that they have what they want. This isn’t the Death Starrr making a ssstatement. This is ending the war the moment it beginsss. This is what makes it all ssstop.”

“If the death of one man saves the lives of a hundred, that death is just,” Dr. Otero said. “That is a lesson many in this galaxy have yet to learn. Or perhaps they believe it doesn’t apply to them.”

“There’sss no need to fear the sssecond shot,” Hux promised. “Because you know there is no sssecond shot. Remove the Rrrepublic in one shot and the Firssst Orrrder is there to control the powerful, to uplift the downtrodden, to redistribute wealth, to make the galaxy sssafe for the firssst time in its hissstory.”

Dr. Stovek put up a few token struggles, his heart clearly not in it. Instead he listened as Hux purred sweet whispers into his ear. They all heard the words and Dr. Otero found he agreed with them. From the others’ expressions, from the comfortable blue of Dr. Bescom’s coat, they all agreed in one way or another.

Dr. Stovek sobbed once and then Hux let go. Hux stepped back and away even as Dr. Stovek dropped to his knees. Hux walked back to his chair and sat down as though none of it had happened.

“Major, in the event disagreements like this crop up again, I feel we need a mechanism for dealing with them,” Dr. Otero said. “If we can codify some rules I believe we’ll be able to deal with these disagreements internally without needing to involve First Order command in any way.”

“That’s a good idea,” Dr. Bescom agreed. “Have any of you eaten yet? We could talk about it in the mess hall.”

“I have something I need to get back to,” Dr. Otero said, glancing at Hux who nodded. “Do let me know what you decide.” He stood up and left.

He could almost feel the haunted look Dr. Stovek gave him as he left.

Dr. Otero returned to the lift and sent it down to the deep tunnels. He had an apprentice to get back to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not know when I had the Mad Science Corps [unionize back in **May**](https://nebulousmistress.tumblr.com/post/637696533966536704/on-the-mad-science-corps) that the engineer would break. I figured someone would break but I didn't know it would be the engineer.


	4. The Next Phase

Major Armitage Hux huffed and snorted as he ran.

It wasn’t dignified. There was nothing dignified about his current position. Tubes attached to a mask that sealed over his face, feeding and measuring the gases that he breathed in and out. He ran on a treadmill, the rubbery belt bouncing under every single footfall. The wretched device spun beneath him at a speed he fought to maintain. He wasn’t allowed to wear clothes, instead forced to run naked.

Worst of all, he wasn’t running on two feet.

“That’s it, just a little longer,” Dr. Katsuo crooned.

Hux growled as he pushed himself. His wrists ached from the effort. The soft compression braces wrapped around his wrists and ankles, in jarring pink and yellow, did nothing to help him after this long on the treadmill. He kept compensating by jumping, long leaps with the entire body that allowed him to cover much more distance with less impact and more momentum. But he couldn’t maintain that either, the treadmill wasn’t designed for the variable speeds this produced and he didn’t want to slam into the wall again.

“All right, scale it back,” Dr. Katsuo said. She tapped a few controls on the treadmill and the belt began to slow.

Hux slowed to a trot then pushed himself to two legs and a jog. The shift in movement felt odd, the return to human-like locomotion strange. He slowed to a stop then began to shift and wiggle, trying to figure out the odd pinch in his spine.

Dr. Katsuo pointed to a table and Hux climbed onto it, laying on his belly as he arched back then forward as he stretched. This seemed to calm the pinch and he purred before relaxing.

Dr. Katsuo took careful notes as he moved. His spots were flushed under a sheen of oil. His crest hung thick and damp down his spine. His limbs were long and loose and pale. The palms of his hands were visibly reddened from the stress of taking his weight as he ran. His wrists moved stiffly under the braces. His narrow ankles and sharp heels moved with similar stiffness, the balls of his feet wide with toes that splayed even though the feet were relaxed.

This was not the Armitage Hux she’d worked on three years prior.

Three years ago the Supreme Leader had brought her a half human hybrid and told her to strip him of his humanity. She’d even been given the father and the opportunity to thoroughly examine the human template she was called to remove.

Remove it she had. She’d used the human template to develop a gene drive meant to remove the human elements and reinforce the alien genes found in Hux’s own cells. A few surgical interventions completed the un-humanizing process.

Or so she’d thought.

When he left her care three years ago Hux didn’t have this crest or these spots, nor were his joints quite this altered. He hadn’t moved like this. She’d never imagined the gene drive would cause this many long term effects. But then, she’d never had the chance to try this on an adult human before. And really, the spots and the crest were superficial alterations.

She was more interested in any internal changes. 

The computer showed her the data from the last few tests, tracking Hux’s metabolic rate as derived from trace gases. The braces on his wrists and ankles held their own sensors, biomechanical data displayed on holographic screens in both raw form and in derived visuals.

Camera and lidar data detailed the movement of every bone and muscle under bare skin.

“I’m sure somebody in the First Order has studied Arkanans before,” Hux grumbled. He’d given up on attempting to preserve any modesty, instead curling up on the table. He was sore, tired, and getting hungry. Curling up felt odd so he uncurled and stretched again, unable to stop his own purr.

Dr. Katsuo turned away from Hux and retreated to the corner of the room. She switched out the lenses in her goggles, removing the standard lenses in favor of the macro lenses with the built in near-IR laser. She returned to the table where Hux lounged and reached out with one latex-clad hand. Sensors in the latex gave her information on his skin, smooth and oily. The muscles were thin and wiry, something her genetic analysis told her would not readily change. Inner reserves of brown fat burned hot to keep the Arkanan warm in a cold and wet swamp. The oil layer coating his skin kept that heat in, especially against cold water.

The occasional hair follicle still broke through the skin, the last vestiges of human body hair. A few thin scraggly hairs remained outside of the thick fur patches on his crest, his head, and his midsection. But she supposed that made sense. It was easier to break the suction of mud and water against bare skin if there was no body hair to provide friction. His ability to move as she’d seen would be advantageous in such an environment.

He looked at her and she activated the macro lenses. Her own vision zoomed in to view the IR laser data from inside his eyeball. Her expression changed to one of unnerving glee, causing his pupils to widen. His fear gave her a better view of his retina as she scanned both eyes and sent the data to the computer for analysis.

He pulled away and growled in warning and she ignored him, moving on to the next item on her list. 

Hux allowed it as she pulled his gums back and looked at his teeth. A modified dental speculum allowed her access to his teeth for cleaning and examination. It could also be used to measure his bite force, but she had never before tested that part of its capacity.

“You’ve continued changing,” she mused. “I would have thought the gene drive took care of the bulk of your transformation. I suppose I didn’t take into account long term cell replacement.”

Hux tried to answer her but his mouth was wedged open. He rumbled.

“The First Order has some files on native Arkanans,” she said. “I’m not entirely sure I trust their author but I can’t exactly ask your father to clarify anything he wrote.”

Hux murred as she drew metal tools along his teeth, meticulously scraping away plaque and rinsing it into a sample collection jar.

“If you knew of a way to access more beings like you, I wouldn’t have to rely on your father’s files. Besides, he wasn't a scientist. At best he was an enthusiast. For some definitions of.”

Hux snorted and glared at her. The speculum registered a spike of bite pressure that soon abated.

“I can make them available for you if you’d like,” she said conversationally. “It’s not something I’d inflict on anyone unprepared. He left enough information for five essays on the intricacies of Arkanan sexual habits.”

Hux shook his head, tossing it to try and shake off her presence around his mouth. It didn’t work and he growled, his ears twitching.

“But he was observant,” she continued. She grabbed Hux by the jaw and pulled him back to facing her, a silent order to submit and stay still. “He knew exactly what he was doing when he starved you. He knew all their eating habits, he knew what you needed to survive, and he gave you just enough to keep you alive.”

Hux growled and the speculum registered a strong spike of bite pressure, the readout registering twice the human average bite force. That peak did not abate. 

“And you suspected this,” she mused. “Of course he knew what he was doing. How could he not?”

The peak rose a little more as he snarled. The pressure reading fell off as he let go then reached up to tear the speculum from his own mouth. That snarl turned into a low growl, crest raised as his head dropped in a threatening manner.

Dr. Katsuo watched, blank droid eyes giving no indication of emotion. She merely waited for him to either pounce or calm himself.

He wouldn’t pounce. He knew better. His anger was inconsequential to all she could and would do for him as a member of his mad science corps. All she had to do was wait for him to remember that.

His growl turned to a low murr as he pulled away from her, crouching on the exam table in a defensive posture. His crest stayed raised, thick and fluffed as he watched her through nearly solid black eyes.

“You know my research belongs to you, Major,” she said. “My work has already been incorporated into the new  _ Resurgent _ -class vessels for your use and comfort. They’re yours, as am I. But I agree with my fellows, I need access to more if you truly wish to see the fruits of my labors.”

His crest fell then fluffed then fell again. Hux shook himself, his crest finally lying calm before he pulled himself into a sitting position. “You’ve spoken to them?” he asked.

“Dr. Stephan and I have some joint projects,” she allowed. “You’re turning Ilum into a weapon. Does the Ascendency know?”

“The others exaggerate,” Hux said dismissively.

She merely stared at him, waiting for him to tell her the truth.

Hux sighed. “We haven’t yet determined what Ilum is capable of,” he said. “I can’t go to the Ascendency with what I have, it’s barely nothing. Less than nothing.”

“And when you have something, what then? Will the First Order accept censure for your actions? Will they simply toss you out of an airlock? Or worse, give you fully to the Supreme Leader for him to toy with?”

Hux didn’t meet her blank gaze.

“I suggest you have something quickly,” she warned. “You build your machine of war on the doorstep of the Ascendency. They will want to know about it, to prepare for the moment the First Order takes control of it from you. Do not assume your First Order willing to let you keep what you create, Major. Isn’t that what you’ve done to poor Stovek?”

Hux growled, a low warning that she’d overstepped her bounds. What he did with the other scientists was not her concern. “And what’s your interessst?”

Dr. Katsuo smirked. “Have you ever wondered how I came to the First Order?” she asked sweetly. “I was already here. You came to me.”

Hux’s hissing growl caught in his throat. He stayed crouched on a corner of the exam table as he watched her. He always thought she was human, an Imperial scientist left over from the Empire’s last days. But under the shoulder length latex gloves, the full body covering of labcoat and modified uniform, even the droid goggles…

He’d never seen her eyes. He looked closer, unsure if her skin was always this smooth or if it was the same latex as those gloves. His crest stood on end as the thought crossed his mind. “I suppose the Ascendancy will find out one way or another,” he allowed.

Her smirk grew into a full grin. “One way or another,” she agreed.

Hux may have made a mistake. They all had.

*****

General Pryde would follow the commands of his Supreme Leader.

That didn’t mean he had to like it.

The  _ Kraken _ was in the Ilum system, a rare turn of events. Normally the  _ Kraken _ and the Supreme Leader were elsewhere, lost in the Unknown Regions on whatever strange errand the Supreme Leader had cooked up for himself. Pryde didn’t pretend to understand the inner workings of a Force-user’s mind but he missed the carefully constructed plans of the Sith. Emperor Palpatine had plans, plans that Pryde couldn’t begin to understand. He could only give himself to their conflagration and burn in their glory.

This was not the same.

The  _ Kraken _ sat docked within a superstructure of six drydocks welded together. The shape was improbable. If not for the contracts with Kuat, Pryde would never have believed it.

It was to be a ship, a capital ship of ridiculous size.

Kuati technicians swarmed the  _ Kraken _ , invisible from this distance. The amalgamation of pleasure barge, cargo vessel, and nautilus shell would slowly be dismantled and then incorporated into the vast ship, the Supreme Leader’s new throne vessel. A place for him to keep his favored playthings close.

The mad scientists.

Brendol’s bastard brat.

General Pryde would be relieved to wash his hands of all of them.

Dr. Katsuo was a menace and a liability with questionable loyalties. Pryde never did trust her, no matter what the Supreme Leader claimed. He had his reasons, reasons he could not disclose to High Command lest he face the Supreme Leader’s personal ire.

Dr. Otero was worse, a madman already stationed on Ilum when the First Order arrived. A madman who had expected them, who had been awaiting their arrival. Who claimed to know the true purpose of the Emperor’s contingency plans but refused to share them.

The scientists were smaller threats who seemed to keep each other in check. But when it was announced the ‘mad science corps’ would be taking over operations of the new capital ship as per the terms of the contract with Kuat, most of High Command had been furious. A capital ship of such potential size should be kept under military control. It was a weapon, likely the biggest that the modern galaxy would see for decades.

But the greatest threat was Armitage. Without Brendol to keep him in check, the menace was consolidating power. Admiral Brooks reported the Stormtrooper Corps was being overhauled to fit the demands of Captain Phasma even as the trooper’s conditioning was changed without his knowledge or permission. Rumors from Ilum implied there’d been a breakthrough and a ‘next phase’ was about to begin. He’d even begun repeating Brendol’s deviancies, running naked through the corridors like an animal wearing nothing but his spots and pink and yellow sleeves.

The Supreme Leader could take them all. Keep them. Do what he liked with them. Pryde wanted nothing to do with any of them. 

He washed his hands of the whole affair. General Pryde would follow the commands of his Supreme Leader.

For now.

**Author's Note:**

> I turned Ilum into an [actual planet](https://nebulousmistress.tumblr.com/post/636870829558448128/on-basic-fking-physics) a while ago. I have not forgotten that.


End file.
